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Both the goblin and the sprite crept through the woods with weapons drawn as if expecting a fight. Yet they let their backs show to each other.
The red wolf was the only thing lit in the inky shadows beneath the trees. The two Fae couldn’t fail to see him and to see that he was unable to defend himself.
Unseelie Fae were known to go to great extremes in their hatred for Celtic wolves. They would do anything to kill them. They had murdered Pete’s parents. If Siobhan were in league with the local unseelie Fae, then this might have been her plan all along.
I got it wrong.
Siobhan’s intention had not been to get the wolf to kill Liliana, but to get Liliana to kill the wolf.
She used me.
Liliana had unwittingly given Pete over to his enemies, wrapped like a present.
She measured silk carefully, unsheathed her arm blades, then jumped.
While the seelie sprite would not be able to see in the dark, the goblin would. Like all unseelie Fae, his kind preferred the night. He saw in the same wavelengths as her second eyes. Still, since the sprite carried a compact machine gun, and spider seers were not bulletproof, Liliana aimed for Siobhan first.
A shouted warning from the goblin who saw her coming was expected, but Liliana was almost on top of the small Fae in her human form.
Too late, the little Fae swung the muzzle of her weapon around.
Liliana struck the sprite’s hands with the blunt side of her blade, knocking the gun from her grip just as she had done to disarm Pete.
The sprite pulled a handgun from under her black leather jacket while Liliana flipped up, landed on a branch, and jumped for another line. She swung around for another pass from a different direction. The tiny woman pushed on her temple next to her left eye, and the eye began to shine with an eerie green glow.
The dangerous little Fae looked right at Liliana and aimed precisely.
She can see me!
As the barrel of that gun lined up with her chest, Liliana squeaked in terror and let go of her line. She dropped to the ground and rolled, hoping to throw off her opponent’s aim.
While running a random pattern between the tree trunks, the spider-kin closed her human eyes, which were useless in the dark anyway, and opened her fourth eyes. She had not yet mastered fighting with them open, but she knew, without the warning of her fourth eyes, she could not be faster than a bullet.
A bullet smacked into the tree beside her. Splinters of wood stung her face. She dodged behind the tree trunk and scrambled up as fast as a squirrel using her spinnerets, her arm blades, and her hands and feet. Her breath came in quick pants, and her heart pounded in her chest. It was too soon for her to be winded. Fear then. Of dying.
Twice in one night.
Her fourth eyes made combat extremely difficult. She might strike where her enemy had been or dodge a weapon that hadn’t yet been fired, or wasn’t even there.
She fervently wished she had more skill at combat with her fourth eyes open, but it was her only chance.
Perhaps she could manage if both her second and fourth eyes were focused on a single object. She focused as hard as she could on the gun in her small enemy’s hand and leapt for a new line.
Pop. The gun went off.
The bullet hit the branch where Liliana had been rather than where she was, but that was her quick, erratic movements saving her. Her fourth vision had not helped. It showed the gun firing in a dozen different directions.
The gun barrel and the small slender arm tracked Liliana again in the now of her second eyes.
An image of the gun firing overlaid the reality.
The spider-kin released her line and dropped, just before another pop and another bullet where she had been.
Yes!
“Damn it, bitch. Hold still,” the sprite cursed.
I have absolutely no intention of doing that.
